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BBMP to begin stray dogs’ survey today
According to officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, the survey will be done by the animal husbandry department of the corporation in Bengaluru. The previous survey in 2019 had identified close to 300,000 street dogs in the city.
The municipal corporation’s dog census -- which was scheduled to begin on July 1 -- will begin on Tuesday, officials said on Monday.
According to officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, the survey will be done by the animal husbandry department of the corporation in Bengaluru. The previous survey in 2019 had identified close to 3 lakh street dogs in the city.
According to animal husbandry department officials, the initiative was postponed due to internal staff transfers. The new census is expected to provide insights into the effectiveness of its vaccination and sterilisation initiatives in controlling the dog population.
“In order to control the number of stray dogs and prevent rabies, which is a zoonotic disease, sterilisation surgery and anti-rabies vaccination programme in stray dogs is carried out by the animal husbandry department of the Corporation,” BBMP said on Monday.
“Further, castration surgery and anti-rabies vaccination programme in eight zones of the corporation has been going on continuously since 2019 till now, and survey of stray dogs is being started to know about the successful implementation of the programme,” the civic body said.
According to officials, BBMP, covering 840 sq km (residential area, sewage area, commercial area and lakes) has been divided into 6,850 micro zones of 0.5 sq km, out of which 20% random samples or 1,360 micro zones have been selected for the survey.
Accordingly, this survey is being done by 100 people including 70 semi-technical staff of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services Department of Bangalore City and 30 staff of the animal husbandry department.
A total of 50 teams have been formed with two surveyors in one team, and 15 supervisors have been deputed to monitor the stray dog survey systematically ward wise, officials said.
The survey of stray dogs is being carried out for a total of 14 days and the said survey will be conducted between 6 am and 8.30 am every day. The information of each dog along with the photograph of the stray dogs found in the micro zone will be entered in the WVS data collection app.
The information recorded in the app can only be viewed by officers and staff, and is not allowed to be viewed by the public. After a total of 14 days of survey Dr KP Suresh, principal scientist (Biostatistics), ICAR-NIVEDI, will consolidate the information and report to the civic body,
The survey will provide the total number of stray dogs -male and female - under the BBMP limits, the percentage of stray dogs subjected to sterilization, human-to-street dog ratio, along with ward-wise distribution of stray dogs.
The civic body had earlier said that drones would be used for the first time to carry out the dog census in the city. BBMP officials said that the survey will be done in a hybrid mode. The drones will be used around water bodies and in remote areas to log the number of dogs and in the rest of the areas, teams will collect the data.
